Vail Daily columnist Richard Carnes: Haters still be hatin'

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The single most amazing aspect of last week's election results is that there are, much to my dismay, Americans who still believe it is a winning strategy to hope for our country to fail across the board.

I am absolutely dumbfounded by such stubborn ignorance that can serve no purpose other than to placate narcissistic rage.

How do these people sleep at night? Hanging upside down, perhaps?

The businesses that immediately fired employees last week and directly blamed the election were merely waiting until after the election to do so.

It should not slip past anyone with more common sense than an illegal attempt to vote that they conveniently made sure the media was aware of their stunt before passing out the pink slips.

"Look at me! I'm having to fire these good folks because you (pointing a crooked finger straight towards a camera lens) voted for that socialist to stay in office!"

"Um, boss, that's a kid with an iPhone. The TV camera's over this way ..."

"Hey mister, you got spit all over my camera!"

Believing these employees would not be fired if Romney won is like believing the so-called fiscal cliff did not exist until Nov. 7.

First of all, it's not a cliff, but a gradually progressive, hopefully never-ending, highway of national existence covered with more and more potholes as we expand forward and grow.

If the road were easy, we would all just meet alongside the shoulder in a ditch every evening holding hands and singing campfire songs, but reality has a nasty habit of hitting Americans on the head every time we become too complacent or delusional.

And delusions are apparently ruling the right side of the road nowadays.

On Jan. 1 we say adios to the Bush tax rates, the 2011 payroll tax cuts and the emergency unemployment benefits while simultaneously saying hello to a more thorough alternative minimum tax and $984 billion in defense and other painful automatic spending cuts.

That's a lot of cuts, but they are needed.

Kicking the can down the road (which is what Congress appears to be on the verge of doing) is nothing more than adding weights to the chain of national debt already hanging around our kids' necks.

If you live inside a bubble long enough, you will inevitably forget there is a world outside the bubble. But this is a bubble that needs bursting, and the quicker the better.

Yes, the sacrifices will be many. Unemployment will rise ,and the stock market will sink, but these are the cuts that we've all been clamoring for these last few years. Now that the time is here, how dare we change our minds because we're suddenly too afraid to deal with the consequences.

Listen, Paul Ryan was little more than Sarah Palin in a jock strap, and the fact that David Petraeus couldn't keep the little general in his pants is no excuse for more conspiratorial nonsense to waste our time.

Either we care as a nation to continue climbing out of this mess that began (in earnest) in 2007 or we keep pulling each other down in some misguided and vain attempt to win playing political King of the Hill.

It's hard to believe this is still an actual choice for some.

Richard Carnes of Edwards writes weekly. He can be reached at poor@vail.net.